Slush funds not confined to unions

It’s wrong for Tony Abbott to suggest that political slush funds are confined to labour unions.

A business slush fund financed a media blitz that forced Kevin Rudd from office. Fossil fuel companies have a political slush fund.

What Tony Abbott says (“Abbott rejects IR reform", August 28) and what he does varies.

If the Liberals could get away with it, they’d disinter slave labour. Failing that, Abbott will disinter Work Choices, but under another name, so he doesn’t appear to lie.

John Howard lied when he said there would be no second wave of anti-union measures.

Nick Minchin let the cat out of the bag when he told the HR Nichols Society that the Liberals would crush unions and wages – then recanted – like Tony Abbott is doing.

Minor parties come and go, but there are only two parties capable of forming a government – the Labor Party and the cheap labour (or Liberal) party. That’s what business donors expect from Tony Abbott – cheap non-union labour.

Abbott’s dilemma is how to do that – while at the same time appearing not to.

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Thank God for
John Howard
(“Howard calls for more Chinese investment", August 28).

It’s about time we heard some common sense about the important topic of how we as a nation deal with Chinese investment in Australia.

The Australian public knows little about modern China and still lives with its “reds under the bed", “yellow peril" views, which are easily aroused by antediluvian politicians for their own venal purposes.

Just to set the record straight: the Chinese government has far too many troubles at home to think about invading anywhere, and they are not going to buy Australia, tow it to the South China Sea using us as slave labour to further its well-documented cause of world domination.

As John Howard reminds us, a foreign investor “still has to comply with the laws of Australia", and that includes the Chinese.

The Huawei debacle shows just how juvenile the federal government is in its dealings with China.

The Chinese are savvy enough to know that if they bug the telecommunications system, and are found out, it would be disastrous for the Chinese and their international business and their political relationships.

Do the Chinese spy on us? Yes they do. Do we spy on them? Yes we do. Espionage is and always has been a part of international politics, and it also produces the plot lines for some truly great movies.

The “juvenile" (Howard’s word, and I agree) approach to the faux “United States or China?" debate is another instance of the lack of maturity of this country’s China policy.

Get over it, Australia. Take the money, develop the economy and create the jobs.

Jim Wilson, Beaumont SA

Strident calls from the sidelines for the federal Coalition to advocate significant workplace rules changes are politically naive in the extreme.

John Howard, Peter Reith, Michael Baume, and the AFR editorial writer (“Howard right on workplace rules", August 28) are all self-righteously demanding that Tony Abbott’s team “muscle up" on workplace reform before the next election.

Such an approach would entail massive political risks and throw a lifeline to Labor. Abbott is wise to stick to his course and ignore these politically naive demands.

If Abbott is to seek a mandate for more significant workplace reform, political reality demands that he wait until the lead-up to the 2016 election when (hopefully) the case can be argued in his capacity as the incumbent. Right now his job is to ensure the defeat of this disastrous government at the 2013 election.

Nick Minchin, Tusmore SA

The whole
Julian Assange
circus and the theatre he seems able to orchestrate makes a mockery of his claimed persecution and alleged disadvantage.

The contributions of Michael Moore, Oliver Stone and the usual others prove that the left-wing critics are wrong again.

Orwell noted that pacifists were effectively Nazis, as their obstruction aided an enemy. In the modern era this, as Christopher Hitchens noted, translates into de facto support for the likes of the Taliban, Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic.

The critics venting against everything Western, democratic and whatever perceived minor weakness of civilised society totally overwhelms logic, and leads them to effectively support anti-democratic movements or regimes.

Apparently educated people equate democracy with dictatorship and in the minds of the critics we are the equals of China and Russia.

Well we are not, and nor is Assange a journalist; his work has been calculated to damage democracies, not its enemies, and has aided states that actually oppress dissidents. Inherent in Assange’s logic is a perversion of mission – he undermines democracy and aids dictatorships.

As much as the critics laud Ecuador for assisting Assange evade sexual assault charges, we are not the equals of the socialist regime in Ecuador which shoots strikers, arrests journalists, shuts down critical media outlets and creates compliant ones.

Martin Gordon, Canberra ACT

Methinks Ian Silk protesteth too much about his fund’s concern for “the interests of members" (“Some super findings most welcome," Letters, August 27).

Our recent work shows that AustralianSuper is really more interested in the fund as a business, and interests of members is a lesser priority. This evidence is not limited to that fund but it provides a good example of misplaced priorities in trustee boards.

The default mechanisms in the Productivity Commission report are simply a way of channelling the vast riches of the super guarantee which we show provides funds with enormous financial “flexibility" – the greater the SG intake the greater the flexibility. This means a trustee board of monkeys cannot help but outperform when given greater access to the superannuation guarantee.